Abstract

This article reports on interrelationships between x-ray structure,mechanical properties, coefficient of friction, and wear coefficient of thick nanocompositefilmssputtered using unbalanced magnetron from a composed C/Ti target ; here nc and denotes the nanocrystalline and amorphous phase, respectively. It is shown that (1) and of the nanocompositefilm strongly depend not only on its hardness but also on its effective Young’s modulus ; here is the Poisson ratio, (2) the nanocompositefilms with and the ratio (characterizing the resistance of film to plastic deformation) ranging from to exhibit the lowest values of and , and (3) increases with increasing load of the testing ball. The main result of this investigation is the finding that the achievement of the lowest value at a given value of is of key importance in the formation of films with the lowest values of coefficient of friction and wear coefficient .

Received 14 September 2009Accepted 28 December 2009Published online 27 January 2010

Acknowledgments:

This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic under Project No. MSM 4977751302 and the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic under Project No. KAN 400480701.

Article outline:I. INTRODUCTIONII. EXPERIMENTIII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONA. Structure of filmsB. Friction and wear1. Interrelationships between filmstructure,mechanical properties,friction, and wear2. Effect of load of testing ball on measured value of coefficient of frictionIV. CONCLUSIONS